HELEN'S JOURNAL

The road is different at night. It belongs to the long, siver trucks that shudder past, or that stop awhile, as if all on some secret nightime cue with each other, their vast bodies packed together outside the roadside cafe's.

Just as it is a different experience driving from West to East than it was going the other way, the road reveals new secrets when travelled at night. Suddenly a huge neon cross towers, luminous, out of the blackness. Strangely it appeared just as I was fixing the picture of a church in Santa Fe alongside one from Britain into the web site - which was somewhat unnerving......

We pass through endless towns on this 500 mile night crossing. Their outlines are defined against the endless, flat, black land by rows of bright lights. They shine enticingly, as if aglow with the promise that something exciting is happening there, tempting the tired driver to leave the road and stop for a while. Giant billboards, shouting their offers in bright neon letters flash past us as we drive on through the night.

At last signs for Tulsa start to appear-we are on the homeward stretch. Suddenly the rear window is bathed in flashing blue light and a police car, apearing as if from nowhere like that spooky cross, pulls us over to the side of the road. The grievance caused was not [surprisingly ] speeding, but our damned licence plate. Well for 'plate' read 'piece of paper with a Kentucky number on it, sealed in a plastic bag and expired to boot'. This''bag o' license'' was stuck on to the back of the car [there isn't anything at all at the front] and had flapped over on itself in the wind, causing the alert officer to spring to attention on his night traffic patrol, speed after us, lights a flashing and draw this to our attention. We have get some tape to stick it down better.

We finally arrive at Leslie's dad's at 4am, with just enough energy to send the web pages before falling into soft beds, motionless at last.